Deacon knew to steer clear of Piper Wright.

It wasn't that she was particularly dangerous, or that he steered clear of danger in the first place. He'd prefer not to get shot, as a general rule, but it never stopped him from doing what needed doing. He'd spied on Institute Coursers from around corners of buildings, led runaway synths through hostile territory, bluffed his way out of various wasteland jail cells. One time he'd even slipped in and out of the Brotherhood Citadel back in the Capital Wasteland, gathering intel on the Brotherhood's anti-synth agenda. So no, Deacon didn't avoid danger as a rule - but he did avoid Piper. The Diamond City journalist who paid a little too much attention.

There was something poetic there, he was sure, about the pen being mightier than the sword. Except it was a silenced semi-automatic, and not a sword, Deacon had concealed in a hidden pocket of his sweater-vest, and Piper never wasted ink on pens. She needed the ink for her printing press. When she wrote something down, which was often, she'd use graphite, pre-war pencils she absentmindedly chewed while she reviewed her notes at the noodle stand at the end of every day. No amount of firepower stood a chance against that chewed pencil of hers.

That's why he always took operations in Diamond City seriously. Well, Piper wasn't the only reason. If there was one place in the Commonwealth which the Institute had reliably infiltrated, it was Diamond City. He was used to dodging the Institute, but he'd slipped up around Piper once or twice, and that made him nervous. He'd come into town with the same face twice in a row last year, and though he'd had different disguises, she'd almost made him. He'd gotten a face swap later that day, and avoided Diamond City since, just to be safe. There was no getting out of this one, though: reliable intel that a Conrad Kellogg, one of the biggest thorns in the side of the Railroad, had been seen within the city.

So Deacon was back in Diamond City, for the moment. He'd bought a room at the Dugout Inn, where he was going to meet his contact later tonight. This wasn't going to be a quick in-and-out mission. It wasn't a dead drop, or an escort, or a hit. It was going to be an investigation, one with a lot of risks and only one vague lead. And if he was going to spend a lot of time in the city, he needed to avoid Piper for as long as possible, so she didn't start to recognize his face.

That was going to be difficult, considering Piper was seated two seats down from him at the bar, scribbling furiously into her notebook.

Deacon was frozen in his seat, trying to act natural, taking a sip from his drink just a little too mechanically. A few moments ago, she'd blown her way into the room, collapsing herself at the bar and ordering a Nuka-Cola from Vladim while she tore into that notebook of hers. Why was she even here? She always finished her day at the noodle stand, and she wasn't a fan of the Bobrov's moonshine, hence the Nuka-Cola. Shit. Shit shit shit. He couldn't get up right away - it would be too obvious - the insult alone would make her remember him. He had to wait, maybe just until he finished his drink, and pray she didn't try and talk to him before he had the chance to slip away. He'd have to miss his meeting with his contact, arrange it for another night. There was no way he felt comfortable having a clandestine meeting within spitting distance of Piper Wright.

Though for once, she didn't seem to be paying attention. Her thick black hair tumbled in front of her face as she wrote, and she brushed it back behind her ear, but not well enough for it to stay there, and it parted and fell in front of her again as she leaned even deeper into her notes. The fact that she didn't make a second attempt suggested she hadn't even noticed her hair was free of its hold. Maybe he had a chance here.

He took another sip of his drink, his eyes darting to the door, and he almost choked. His contact was making his way into the room, shrugging off his patched overcoat and searching the room. Deacon recognized him from the brief description Drummer Boy had given him, and from the suspicious vibes the contact was giving off. His body language made it clear he was looking for someone. He was a contact, not an agent, and a new contact at that. Not even a Tourist, nothing official. Just a sympathetic-minded do-gooder who'd happened to see something important. He had no training, and he wasn't being subtle. He was about to blow everything, right in the middle of Diamond City, the great green jewel in the palm of the Institute.

Before Deacon could even think of a plan, before he could fully react to the danger at hand, there was a flurry of motion next to him, of red coat and black hair and a chewed-up graphite pen, as Piper Wright swiveled in her barstool.

"You!" she said, pointing the eraser end of her pencil at Deacon's contact.

The contact's eyes bulged. He was so nervous, a sheen of sweat could already be seen on his forehead, and that was before he'd been singled out by the Commonwealth's most relentless reporter. He pointed at himself, slow, unsure.

"Muh, me?" he asked, brow furrowing.

But Piper was already halfway across the room, her things scooped up under one arm, that damn pencil already writing away. A description of the contact, Deacon would bet. He was distinctive-looking, six feet two inches tall, with a broken nose that had never healed quite right and startlingly blue eyes. Rough around the edges but good-looking, probably memorable to most who noticed him. And Piper would never forget his description, now. It was in her damn notebook.

"Yes, you! Carl Silver, right? I heard you rented a room here, so I figured I'd wait until you showed up."

"You, you did?" Asked the contact, Carl, Deacon supposed, Drummer Boy hadn't given him the contact's name, just a description and a call sign to confirm.

Should he just let this play out? He'd been going to flake on the contact for tonight anyway. Piper was distracted - this was Deacon's chance to slip away. Carl would have a very uncomfortable night, and would eventually realize Deacon wasn't going to show. Maybe he'd even put it together and realize Piper had been the one to scare him off. Deacon eyed the door to the rooms. Decided he needed to get the timing right - leaving as soon as Piper left was as suspicious as leaving as soon as she arrived.

"Of course I did!" Piper said, an excited edge to her voice which may or may not have been caffeine-induced. "I think you have some juicy gossip you could sling my way."

Piper gestured to one of the couches, and Carl took an uncertain seat, looking around as he did so. Piper took a seat at the couch across from him, her notebook open to a clean (well, unwritten on, anyway) page. This was it. Deacon finished his drink, gave Vladim a nod, and began to ever-so-casually get down from the barstool he'd been perched on for the past two hours.

Then Carl opened his fat mouth.

"Are you the person I'm supposed to talk to?"

Carl was leaned forward, his hands wrung together, and he was speaking in a whisper which wasn't nearly whisper enough. Deacon almost tripped over his own feet, and he spun to face the couches before he could think better of it. There was a moment of confusion in Piper's eyes, but it was overpowered by the hunger in them that followed. She could sniff out a story better than a hound could smell blood. She leaned forward, adopting Carl's conspiratory pose.

"Sure am," she said, trying and failing to suppress a shark-like grin. "Watcha got for me?"

Oh fuck oh shit oh god , Deacon thought, and he was walking towards the couches, walking towards the couches with no plan whatsoever, but letting this play out was not an option. Whatever this contact had to say would end up plastered all over Piper's morning edition, the Railroad would lose this lead, and Carl, he was sure, would end up dead and replaced before the day was out. Shit shit shit.

Carl noticed him first. He was jumpy, on the lookout for people listening in, and he could hardly miss Deacon walking up behind Piper. He saw Carl close down - after all, he had it backwards. If he thought Piper was his Railroad contact - which, come on, really? - then who was Deacon? The silent, unknown factor, coming to interrupt the meeting. An Institute Courser, perhaps. This was getting worse by the minute. Even if Piper up and left right now, it'd be a miracle if he got Carl to trust him after this.

Piper didn't look like she was leaving anytime soon. As Carl caught sight of him, so did she, and she turned to look him up and down, her gaze lingering more than a moment too long on his face. There were few people in this world who ever really, truly looked at you. Most got a general approximation of you, if that. Hair, clothes, one or two defining features. But Piper was one of those few people who looked past all that and just looked at you, and it sent a chill up Deacon's spine. He forced himself not to even glance her way.

"There you are," he said to Carl, imposing a lazy smile on his mask of a face. "I was wondering when you'd show."

He said that because he hadn't yet thought of anything else to say, a story which could get them out of this. Make something up, Deacon. Now. Fast. But pressure was cyanide to the imagination. Piper looked between him and Carl, noted the distrust and lack of recognition on Carl's easily read features.

"You know this guy?" she asked, redundantly, nodding her head with considerable attitude towards Deacon. She wasn't asking a question - she was letting Carl know she'd fight Deacon off if he was a threat. Deacon had seen her do it before, and had seen her land in the Diamond City Jail overnight because of it. The last thing Deacon needed was a scene like that.

"I, uh, I don't, uh, I don't know if I - " I don't know ? Is that what this guy was trying to say? That he didn't know whether or not he knew Deacon? Jesus Christ.

Deacon slid his hands into his pockets, casual, casual, so natural and casual, trying to avoid displaying the tension he felt as Carl mixed up some word salad in front of the human lie detector that was Piper. How the hell was he going to - oh. There. His fingers brushed the edge of the little plastic bottle in his pocket. Finally, an idea. Deacon leaned against the pillar, the picture of cool.

"We haven't met before," Deacon said, flashing Carl a too-bright grin, "but we arranged to meet here. I'm Alex, I've got that Daytripper your cousin said you wanted."

Deacon pulled the little plastic bottle out of his pocket, shook it so the six little pills inside it rattled. Piper's eyes narrowed. Deacon could see Carl trying to process the situation, his eyes flashing between Deacon and Piper, trying to figure out which was his Railroad contact. Deacon kept Piper distracted, thumbing a pill out from the bottle and popping it showily into the back of his mouth, maintaining eye contact with her. If she looked at Carl's face, she'd piece together in a moment that he had no clue what Deacon was talking about. He had to keep her eyes on him.

"Solomon sells plenty of chems in the market," she said, open suspicion in her tone. "What's Carl here need you for?"

"Solomon's supply is decent, but this is the good stuff. You know, from Goodneighbor? Good stuff, Goodneighbor, yada yada. They make the chems strong over there because the ghouls usually need a little extra kick to get the same kinda high. Makes Daytripper even more fun than usual. You interested?"

Piper's nose scrunched up, too surprised at the offer to properly conceal her distaste for chems.

"Uh, no, thanks," she said, and she was starting to buy it. The offer had her on the defensive. She was so busy rejecting the chems that she was forgetting to question whether the chem story itself was true. But they weren't in the clear. She turned back to face Carl again. "I'd still like a word with you, though, Carl."

"I, uh," Carl said, scratching at the stubble around his jaw, "I think I just want to talk to Alex here, about, uh, trying his, uh, his stuff."

Smooth, Carl. The way he said stuff instead of Daytripper made Deacon wonder if he'd already forgotten which chem Deacon had claimed to be peddling. But Piper was too furtive at the moment to notice the slip.

"Come on, Carl. There are lives at stake!"

"There - there are?"

Piper nodded, self-confident.

"There are," she said. "And I think the information you can give me can help me protect people."

"I, uh, I guess that kind of obligates me to talk to you then, I guess?" Carl said, his eyes flashing to Deacon's, for what? Help? Permission?

Deacon pushed off of the wall, sliding onto the couch next to Piper, a little too close. Trying to distract her with his closeness, make her uncomfortable. After her reaction to the chem offer, he'd expect that to have worked, but this time she stood her ground. Or, well, she sat her ground, stiffening but not budging and cocking one eyebrow up as if to comment on his rudeness. Damn, he was definitely going to need a face swap after this.

"Carl looks stressed, and so do you, my friend," Deacon said. "Whatdya say you and Carl have your conversation after Carl and I have ours? I think you'll find him much more, ah, relaxed after I'm through with him."

Deacon threw in a wink at the end, and red coloured Piper's cheeks for a moment. He could smell the victory. All he'd need would be a short conversation with Carl to establish what Deacon needed to know, and what Carl could tell Piper, if she was here to ask about the same things Deacon was. If Piper didn't take the hint this time around, Deacon had another lie prepared - the suggestion that Carl had agreed to pay for the chems using "other means." After all, why else had he rented a room at the Dugout Inn? It fit the story, even if it was a bit crass for Deacon's liking, and Piper didn't handle embarrassment well. If he played that card, she'd back off, he was sure of it. Piper hesitated, looking Deacon up and down again, and Deacon was about to say his line when she interrupted.

"Do I know you?" she asked, and this time, the question didn't sound at all redundant.

Deacon's words died in his mouth, and it took him a moment to recover. A moment that Piper noticed. Her eyes narrowed, and she examined his features more closely. Shit. How the hell had she made him? He looked completely different from when she'd grown suspicious of him a year ago. He'd had surgery, changed his nose, pulled in his cheeks, dyed his hair a greying brown, grown it out four inches so it hung in wavy locks past his ears. Last time she'd seen him, he'd been a caravan guard with a buzz cut and a fake gold tooth. Deacon scrambled, for a lie, for a smile, to unclench his fists before his knuckles went telltale white.

"You ever buy chems from Goodneighbor?" he asked, trying to dazzle her with a grin. It didn't work.

"No," she said, dismissing it out of hand, "I'm sure I know you. And what's more, I think you know me."

Her tone was accusatory, frustrated. Piper was good with faces, and not being able to place his was making her even more suspicious, if anything.

"Look, I just - what did you want to ask me, Piper?"

Carl, bless him, was trying to take Piper's attention off of Deacon. Deacon wasn't sure the alternative was going to be much better, but he couldn't help but be grateful as Piper's all-seeing gaze was turned from him onto Carl.

"Yes," Piper said, so eager for Carl's info that she allowed the subject of Deacon's face to be dropped - for now. She readied her notebook once more. "You were seeing Geneva? The Mayor's secretary?"

Carl seemed surprised. Deacon prayed this was just a gossip piece about Geneva's love life she was writing, though he doubted it.

"Still am, uh, I think. We're on a break - not that kind of a break, just not hanging out together so much, she's got a lot on her plate right now, is all."

"Right. But you're often up in the stands with her? Did you happen to be there two days ago, around midday?"

Carl's eyes flashed to Deacon's. That wasn't good. He had the same look in his eyes, a request for either help or permission. Whatever Piper was asking about, it had to do with the information Carl was supposed to be giving the railroad. Carl swallowed, and answered.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'd brought Geneva some lunch. Sometimes she forgets, you know, works straight through the day without eating. Figured I'd stop by."

"Perfect," Piper said, face lighting up. "Did you see anyone meet with the mayor? A specific fellow maybe - scar over his left eye, balding, kinda grizzled looking?"

Scar over his left eye? She couldn't be talking about Kellogg, could she? Why would Piper even know anything about Kellogg? Conrad Kellogg, ruthless mercenary and enemy number one of the Railroad. Kellogg had personally gunned down a friend of Deacon's four years ago, and had been killing countless other agents for longer than Deacon had been alive.

"I - yeah," Carl was saying, before Deacon even had time to process whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that he was telling the truth. "Fellow just like that. Short meeting, but the mayor didn't look happy."

"He never does, does he?" Piper said, wryly.

"Well, maybe not around you, Piper," Carl laughed. "He's usually a cheerful enough guy."

"Any idea what this mystery man was doing talking to the mayor?"

"I - " Carl glanced at Deacon, and Deacon looked pointedly away, examining the dirt under his nails as though this conversation was boring him. He couldn't afford more attention from Piper at this rate. "Yeah. Well, no. I don't know what he talked to the mayor about. But he stopped at Geneva's desk after, and she had to handle something for him, so I know about that."

That was a surprise to both Piper and Deacon. How did Geneva fit into this?

"What did she handle for him?" Piper asked, her tone now naturally hushed and conspiratory, drawn in by the mystery in front of her.

"Well, she - she sold him a house. I saw her hand over the keys."

Carl glanced at Deacon again, and Deacon felt sick to his stomach. This was definitely what the contact had wanted to communicate to him. Kellogg, taking up permanent residence in Diamond City. If the great green jewel hadn't been off-limits to the Railroad before, it definitely was now. And why? Was this the start of some new operation of his? Kellogg had never set up shop in any one place before. What was his play here?

"Really?" Piper asked, and she sounded equal parts horrified and excited. "Do you know to which house?"

Carl shook his head.

"No, Geneva doesn't give out people's residences," he said. "But it won't be too hard to find him if you try, right? I mean, there aren't that many houses here. But, Piper, this guy was scary. Maybe don't go sticking your neck out, just this once?"

Piper grinned, snapping her notebook shut and standing, eager to go chasing down her new lead.

"It's what I do best, Carl," she said. "Besides, you're right. This guy is scary - he's got a history of murdering families and anyone who gets in his way. And I want everyone in town to know exactly what to expect from their new neighbor."

Piper was walking towards the door, scooping her things into her pockets as she went, twirling her pencil in her hands. Almost as an afterthought, she whipped around, and this time Deacon found himself staring down the end of it.

"And you ," she said, and she narrowed her eyes, bit her lip, and he could see the gears turning in her head, see her make one last attempt to place his face. "I'm not done with you."

Despite saying this, she turned and left, headed back out the door into the Diamond City Market. Deacon felt no relief at her departure. Those words, I'm not done with you , made him feel like she was going to jump out from behind him at any moment.

"So, uh, do you - do you have a geiger counter?" Carl asked.

The callsign, about half an hour too late. Deacon put his head in his hands and groaned.